It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:Giovanni Pagano **Jack Bross **Peter Abide *
Adam Weaver **
Bryce Herdt **
Jack Lance **
John Bulten *
Mark Tilford **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #53

CROSSWORD OF MORE INTEGERS (hint)

10 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here are three letters to get you started. Send your solutions to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

This puzzle comes in two parts. The first part is a sudoku, which you solve normally (the numbers 1-9 appear once in each row, column, and 3x3 box). Each row has a crossword clue next to it; the shaded cell corresponds to the crossword entry in which that answer belongs. (For example, a 5 means that the answer to that clue belongs in 5-Down in the crossword grid.) If you want to really challenge yourself, you can skip the sudoku entirely and try to fit in the crossword answers without knowing where they're supposed to go, but Ryan Faley wouldn't recommend that, and you won't get an extra star for doing so.

Anagram the highlighted letters in the crossword to obtain the final answer word.

RANDOM UPDATE: AN UN-TALENT CONTEST!

Do you have talent? No? Good! Please consider entering my BoardGameGeek's Not Talent contest on BoardGameGeek and posting a video of your lack of talent. So far, the only entrant is. . . me, with a video of an ambitious card routine that will leave you the exact opposite of speechless. Come on, guys! I want to see more entries! Whether your lack of talent involves singing poorly, dancing terribly, failing at magic, horrible stand-up comedy, or anything that you'd expect to see on America's Got Talent (except done better), I would love to see it. Once (if?) there are other entries, you can give them your thumbs up if you detect talent in them; the entry with the fewest thumbs wins!

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .

* What's a 5-letter word for "____ 2000 (short-lived game show with The Creature instead of Bankrupt)"?
* Patron Puzzle #2, which will be delivered exclusively to Patreon supporters ($5 or more per month), is a Snake Crisscross, a puzzle type which (as far as I can tell) was invented by my good friend Craig Kasper. Crisscross words read from left to right or top to bottom as you'd expect; snake words read along bendy paths in the grid. Every letter is used in one snake word and one or two crisscross words; there are 85 words in all.

It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the puzzle, or here for hints. Here's a list of people who solved it:Giovanni Pagano **Jack Bross **
Adam Weaver **
Bryce Herdt **
Izak Bulten *
Jack Lance **
John Bulten *
Kou T. **
Mark Tilford **
Neelix *
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #52

DECK DYNASTY (hint)

9 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your solutions to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

In the crossword puzzle above, every letter is represented by an integer from 1 through 26. You must decipher the code to reveal the words. Once you're done, look for the puzzle's final answer, a nine-letter word (which isn't one of the three nine-letter words in the completed crossword).

9 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here are some hints. (These hints just might help you be a better cryptogram solver in general.) Send your solutions to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

10 patrons on my Patreon are currently pledging a combined total of $51 a month. Assuming none of my patrons reduce or cancel their pledges before the end of the month, I will start posting an extra puzzle on every month with 5 Wednesdays (including this upcoming month of July). Truly, this is an exciting development.

If you hate pushy sales pitches, then don't worry; I don't plan on including a "Patreon update" in every post. I just wanted to announce that there might be more puzzles on this blog every so often. :)

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .

* Wordy Wednesday 53 tasks you with deciphering words, but this time, they're not in a sentence to help you out! Don't get cross!

Solve these six cryptograms; each has its own code, and each has a six-letter word missing. Words that are always capitalized (such as proper names) are indicated with asterisks (*), and words that are capitalized because of their presence in a title are indicated by carats (^). For example, ^Sir *Isaac *Newton's favorite film is “^Gravity”. Fit the six missing words into the crisscross grid and anagram the highlighted letters into the final answer word.

9 patrons on my Patreon are currently pledging a combined total of $46 a month. If this total hits $50 or more at the end of the month, then I will start posting an extra puzzle on every month with 5 Wednesdays (including this upcoming month of July)! That's 4 or 5 extra free puzzles per year! If you enjoy these puzzles, I hope you will consider supporting me on Patreon; with your monthly pledge, you get such perks as early access to the Wordy Wednesday puzzles (M. Sean Molley has already solved WW55 and WW56) and exclusive Patron Puzzles (Patron Puzzle #1, Bricks and Mortar, is going out today). Thank you!

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .

* Wordy Wednesday 52 revolves around six-letter words and playing cards, because those two things go together, apparently.

Support me on Patreon!

If you enjoy my weekly word puzzles, please consider supporting me monthly on Patreon. You'll get sneak peeks at this blog's puzzles, and exclusive puzzles just for patrons. You can support for whatever amount per month fits your budget. Thank you!

Who's the author?

Grant Fikes has been writing logic puzzles in an amateur capacity since 2005, and in a professional capacity since 2013. He serves as the second-most prolific contributor to the blog on Grandmaster Puzzles, behind only Thomas Snyder; his works have also appeared in Akil Oyunlari, in Sudoku Xtra, the United States Puzzle Competition (2012-2014), and in a smartphone app. Grant has also created Kakuro puzzles for Kakuro Conquest (the puzzles haven't appeared yet, for whatever reason). As a budding word puzzle constructor, Grant's puzzles have appeared in the short-lived Will Shortz's Wordplay, in GAMES World of Puzzles, and in the smartphone app Bonza, and his creation Pent Words has won an award from Kadon Enterprises; as an occasional board gamer, his game Battle of LITS has been published by nestorgames and Lyris Laser Studios and is playable on BoardGameArena. On the Internet, Grant has adopted the persona of a purple and cyan fox/badger hybrid.

PLEASE DO:* commission me! I make good puzzles!* become my patron on Patreon! You'll get early access to my word puzzles!* print these puzzles out to solve them on paper* copy and paste these puzzles into your preferred image editor, and solve them there* e-mail me (glmathgrant@gmail.com; I can nudge you towards a solution if you're stuck, or interact with you in other ways)* post non-spoiler comments directly on the blog (i.e., "I like what you did with the 3's", "The logic in the upper left corner was astounding")* share these puzzles with friends and link to this blog

PLEASE DON'T:* spoil the solution in the comments section for all others to see* post completely irrelevant comments (including comments consisting completely of punctuation)* claim these puzzles as your own* make money off of these puzzles without my permission

What's that font?

Since Wordy Wednesday 72, all puzzles on this blog use the royalty-free Tinos font. Hooray for free stuff!

Who made those images?

The purple and cyan mascot on this page is my fox/badger fursona Grant Badger Fox. The blog's banner was made by PunkJax, the image of Grant holding a tip jar was made by Marquis2007, and the "Certified Puzzlemaster" badge was made by Mary Mouse.